Russian oil depot set ablaze by Ukrainian drone strikes

Ukraine has targeted Russian energy facilities and a big oil refinery that feeds Vladimir Putin’s war machine in multiple waves of drone strikes, Kyiv has said.

- ANDY GREGORY

The Ukrainian military said the strike on the refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region had caused a large fire. A video posted on social media that showed orange flames lighting up the night sky in the city of Kstovo. Lukoil’s Norsi refinery, Russia’s fourth largest, is based in Kstovo, which lies east of Moscow and about 800km (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed it had detected more than 100 drones in a major overnight attack, with the governor of the Smolensk region claiming one drone had been shot down near the largest nuclear power plant in Russia’s northwest.

Reporting a “powerful fire” at the oil refinery in Kstovo, a city in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region, Ukraine’s military said yesterday morning that it was still clarifying the extent of the damage but vowed to continue its attacks on facilities involved in supporting Russia’s war.

A Ukrainian military intelligence source claimed to the Kyiv Independent that Lukoil’s depot in Kstovo was targeted by four drones, all of which hit their target and caused “significant damage”. A drone strike also hit Russia's Andreapol oil pumping station, part of an export route via the Baltic Sea port of UstLuga, causing a leakage of oil products and a fire, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine said.

The attack also hit a Russian missile storage facility in Russia’s Tver region, causing a string of explosions, the source said.